A 23-unit apartment building that would focus on housing for the mentally ill is being proposed for Milwaukee's east side.

The five-story building would be built on a 6,000-square-foot vacant lot, at 1851 N. Cambridge Ave., by J. Jeffers & Co, with Grand Avenue Club providing on-site support services, said Carl Lockrem, the club's director of development and financial management.

The proposal calls for setting aside 16 of the building's apartments for clients of the Grand Avenue Club, a community organization for mentally ill people.

The club would provide on-site supportive services, such as job placement help, for club members, said Lockrem and Josh Jeffers, of J. Jeffers & Co.

The building would include eight parking stalls, with many of the building's tenants relying on public transportation. The building would be a seven-minute bus ride from the Grand Avenue Club, 210 E. Michigan St., Lockrem said.

The seven remaining units would be for lower-income families, Jeffers said. He and Lockrem said the building is designed to help integrate mentally ill people into the community, in part by including other residents.

Jeffers & Co. is seeking federal affordable housing tax credits to help finance the building. Those credits are given to developers in an annual competitive process.

Developers that receive the credits agree to provide apartments at below-market rents to people earning no more than 60% of the area's median income. The Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority usually announces in April which developers receive credits from that year's allocation.

The development site is one block south of where Chicago-area developer Yiannis Konstantinou is proposing a four-story building with 40 market-rate apartments, at 1400-1430 E. Boylston St.

Some residents are opposed to that plan, saying it would have too many units.